A trip to meet Santa and a quick festive fireplace mantel

Bodhi was very excited to meet Santa this year. We wrapped up a bag of store-bought cookies (because mall Santas would probably be a bit afraid of homemade ones) and wrote notes on the gifts tags. Bodhi’s tag was filled with squiggly lines. Mine said: To: Santa Love, Bodhi

Good times with a toddler. And that is why our house is all decked out for the holidays. It was fun before, but with a little guy who notices everything, it’s a new kind of amazing!

With a new home comes new decorating opportunities and challenges. Our old garland that we put on our fireplace is too big and bulky for our new fireplace which was sad and disappointing so… time to come up with a new option without spending much.

I took acorns we already had that were spray painted silver and white with glitter and copied them! I bought a huge pack of large cinnamon-scented acorns at Joann Fabrics for $3.99 and used a 25% off total purchase coupon.

Then I used ivory and gold spray paint I had around. Added spray adhesive and poured glitter on them. I finished with a quick spray of lacquer and started putting them on the mantel with white twinkle lights behind them (hidden of course). I filled in gaps with the smaller ones we bought a few years back and Christmas ornaments.

And here it is—nothing on the mantel is new other than the acorns. Easy. Inexpensive. Pretty.

It’s party weekend for us. I’m off running all kinds of errands. Unfortunately, we may be getting an icy slushy mess right at party time tomorrow, but the party is on in sunshine (unlikely in Minnesota winter after 4 p.m.) or in rainsnow RAIN-SNOW?! Worse-case, we have awesome new neighbors who are always up for a party and all of them are invited, so… it’s on!

I’ll show you images of the party details next week and can’t wait to share a few DIY decoration items I created on a dime including a fun and SUPER CHEAP cake topper I made yesterday for a lovely cake that my friend Cassie (from Chubbymama Cupcakes) is making. Hooray for talented and creative friends, right?!